Schumacher 'misquoted' over joy remarks

Michael Schumacher has claimed he was misquoted over his remarks following the Turkish Grand Prix at Istanbul.

The Mercedes driver was quoted as saying that the 'big joy isn't there right now' - leading to further question marks over his future in the sport after a difficult start to his second season since coming out of retirement.

However, Schumacher has now insisted that the comments were taken out of context and referred only to the Turkish race, with the seven-time title winner remaining confident about the Spanish race this weekend.

"If you saw the whole interview it should have been very clear that this was meant for that race," he told Reuters in reference to the comment. "Having a car that was capable for fifth and sixth - and deducting all the unnecessary bits in the first two laps, I would have been most likely sixth - and not being there, that's obviously not the biggest fun.

"The mood coming into this race? That's no different than at any other event. If you think that anything has changed in myself, no. Certainly not. Again, even doing that race I enjoyed part of that race with all the overtaking and action that I had. But the result certainly I didn't enjoy."

Schumacher added that he felt confident that he could fight for victories once again in F1 and argued that criticism was all part of the job.

"I should be honoured that you guys are still putting so much interest in myself," he said. "In a way we both live from this. Sports are about emotions and they go up and they go down in certain moments and I am more than certain I will have the upper hand by the end. So I'm not worried.

"Naturally you would prefer not to have unnecessary critics but that's part of our life. I've been through this so often and after every storm the sun always comes out.

"[Winning] is the only thing why I am coming back... we'd rather win today than tomorrow, that's for sure, but then I didn't understand the whole situation as well as I do now."